My Investment Portfolio

Why I left Engineering/IT

I didn't leave because it was hard.
I left because it was no longer worth it.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

My Investment Portfolio (December 2014)

STI ended the year up 6.24% to close at 3365 points. Some window dressing efforts had pushed the index up near the end of the month, though slumping oil prices continue to affect oil-related stocks. Overall, there is not much news on the corporate front, typical for the last month of the year.

For
this month, I have attended the following AGMs/EGMs/briefings
- Mermaid Maritime, Communication Design International, Miyoshi and Second Chance Properties.

For
my top 30 holdings, Singapura Finance returned to the list after I subscribed for its rights issue last month and those rights shares had been credited this month. UOL returned to the list after its better performance compared to other stocks near the top 30 list. Keppel T&T dropped out of the list after investors sold down the stock as they are concerned that the company might have to compensate SGX for its trading system downtime at its data centre. Otherwise, there is no major movements in the list.

The first month of 2015 will have some AGMs for companies with financial year ending 30 September 2014. I will be attending some of these AGMs to get some updates from those companies. It will also be a low dividend paying month. Therefore, I will seek to conserve my cash and re-invest slowly and prudently back into the market.

My S'pore Stock Portfolio - Top Holdings, cash investment only (correct as at 31 December 2014)

Friday, December 26, 2014

Review/Reflections for 2014

The year is ending soon and it is a good time to do another review piece. Bascially, not much had changed for my portfolio though markets had been volatile this year. There are plenty of market noises this year from Ebola outbreak to Hong Kong demonstrations to Russia invading Ukraine and of course, fall in oil price.

Thoughout these events, I stay vested in the market, collecting dividends along the way and re-investing some back into it. The fall in oil price had hit some oil-related counters and I had also increased my stake in some blue chip companies like Keppel Corp and SembCorp Industries this month.

However, I do lost some companies this year due to M&A activities. Stocks like Goodpack, Lee Kim Tah, CapitaMalls Asia, Singapore Land etc are now history and out of my holdings. Companies do come and go, but it is sad to lose some of these companies through privatisations.

This year also seen me joining another investment group. Actually, this group is a sub-set of the main investment group I had been joining for the past few years. It had been great interacting with fellow like-minded investors in these two groups. You know who you are, and I thank you all for making my investment journey more enjoyable and less lonely.

I have attended more than 90 AGMs, EGMs, briefings etc this year. Though it fell short of my target of around 100, it is still a reasonable amount considering the fact that I fall sick for a period of time this year. I have met the usual faces and also new ones. Again, thanks for all of you whom I met during these meetings for making it an interesting interaction and exchange of investment ideas.

I had been a full-time investor for 3.5 years now. The years of being a corporate employee is clearly over. My market value in the employment market is now almost zero. I think I have reached a point of no return. Clearly, my focus is on my portfolio and investment going forward.

Again, I didn't compute my portfolio return but I think this year should be an average year for me. Though my portfolio didn't lose much value, I don't think it had gain much too due to many volatile days in the markets. Having said that, I do think that my strategy of staying invested had taken emotions out of the markets which makes me sleep better at night.

I hope that 2015 will be a great year for investors and all you readers out there. I certainly hope so and hope to share with all of you my activities in my portfolio every month at this blog.

About Me

A self-directed investor, looking to invest for retirement needs and bypass all those expensive financial planners/insurance agents. Investing is fun, profitable or most important of all, knowledge gained is useful for the rest of your life!